All the hatred, all the accusations, all the cruel words—they had all been built on a lie, a misunderstanding. And now, finally, the truth was out.

I stared at the screen, numb. I wanted to feel relief, maybe even a glimmer of hope, but instead, I just felt empty. The truth was out, but it didn’t change anything. I had lost everything—the love of my family, my friends, even my own sense of worth. For two years, I had lived with their scorn, their anger. I had accepted it, made it part of myself, like a scar that had healed over but still ached beneath the surface.

The sound of voices outside my window pulled me from my thoughts. I looked down and saw a crowd gathering in front of the house. News vans were parked on the street, their cameras pointed at the house. Among the crowd were familiar faces—friends from school, people from the neighborhood, even my siblings. They were all there, looking up at the attic window, calling out to me.

Their voices reached me, muffled but clear enough to make out their words. They were apologizing, begging for forgiveness, saying they had been wrong. I heard the familiar voices of my siblings, each of them admitting their mistakes, their voices thick with regret. Then, finally, I heard my mother’s voice. She sounded different, softer, almost fragile. She was crying, saying she hadn’t known, that she was sorry for everything she’d said, everything she’d done.

I watched them, listened to their pleas, but I felt nothing. Their words washed over me like a distant echo, too faint to reach the walls I’d built around myself. They were sorry now, now that the truth was out, now that the whole world knew. But where were they when I needed them? Where were they when I was alone, broken, locked away in this attic like some unwanted memory?

I turned away from the window, blocking out their voices. I moved back to the far corner of the attic, where the shadows were deepest, where I could be alone again. Their apologies, their regrets—they couldn’t reach me here. I was done. I had lived through their hatred, survived their accusations, but I had lost something along the way, something I wasn’t sure I could ever get back.

As the night wore on, their voices grew softer, fading into the distance. The crowd eventually dispersed, the news vans drove away, and silence reclaimed the house. I lay down, staring up at the ceiling, feeling the weight of everything press down on me. I was alone again, but this time, it felt different. There was a finality to it, a sense that I had crossed a line, that I could never go back.

Days passed, but I barely noticed them. Time had become something meaningless to me. I stayed in the shadows of the attic, listening to the creaks of the old wood, the muffled sounds from the street outside. Every now and then, I would hear someone approach the door below, hear them call my name softly, begging me to come down, to talk to them. I ignored them. I didn’t need their apologies, their guilt, or their regret. It was too late for that.

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Sometimes, at night, I’d see the light from my father’s last letter on the table. The simple note that came with each check, a reminder that I was still on his mind, that he hadn’t forgotten about me. I wanted to be grateful, to feel some kind of comfort in knowing he still cared. But instead, all I felt was emptiness. I was like a ghost, haunting this attic, cut off from the world below.

Outside, people moved on. I watched them from my window, living their lives, laughing, rushing to work, going out with friends. Sometimes, I’d catch sight of the people I used to know—friends I’d grown up with, people who had once been part of my world. They’d glance up at the house, see the attic window, and look away quickly, as if they couldn’t bear to think about what was hidden inside.

The apologies that had seemed so loud at first grew quieter, less frequent. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, until the noise outside the attic faded into nothingness. I had become something forgotten, a rumor that had lost its meaning, a memory people spoke of in whispers, if they spoke of it at all.

One afternoon, I sat by the window, watching a storm roll in from the horizon. Dark clouds gathered, thick and heavy, blocking out the sun, casting the world into shadows. The air felt thick, tense, like something was about to break. I watched as the first drops of rain hit the window, small trails of water running down the glass. The sound of the rain filled the attic, soft at first, then louder, drowning out everything else.

I closed my eyes, letting the sound wash over me, feeling it like a presence in the room. It was strange, but for a moment, I felt almost at peace. The rain was familiar, a reminder of something I had once loved, something that had made me feel alive. I remembered running through the rain as a kid, laughing, feeling the drops on my face, the thrill of being soaked to the skin. But that memory felt like it belonged to someone else now, someone I could barely remember.

As the storm grew louder, I heard a knock on the attic door. I didn’t respond, didn’t even move. The knock came again, louder this time, insistent. I sat there, staring at the door, waiting for whoever it was to leave. But they didn’t. The door creaked open, and for a moment, I thought it was my father, back from wherever he had gone, here to see if I was still alive.

But it wasn’t him. It was my mother.

She stepped into the attic, her face pale, her eyes red-rimmed. She looked older than I remembered, tired, as if the years had worn her down. She stood there for a moment, just looking at me, as if she didn’t know what to say. I stared back, feeling nothing, my face blank, expressionless.

“I know you don’t want to see me,” she said finally, her voice barely above a whisper. “But… I had to come. I had to… try.”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what she wanted from me. Forgiveness? Understanding? I had none of those things left to give.